Firefox Plugin for Wikipedia Live History

I've been using Wikipedia since it was released, and have downloaded and used Mediawiki for 4 years now as well. I love the idea of wiki's, and have used quite a few different programs including a good 12.8% of the software listed on this list. There are some nice features on some of them that make the better suited for different functions, like home use or sales. I liked the Ruby driven for global "ToDo" lists for (by use of a ToDo tag you could put on any page, and see all items on the "ToDo" page) as well as the Mind Map feature it has.

But, as they've never said, "Home is where the Data lives" and Wikipedia has it. Because of that, we all have to live with Mediawiki and it's way of doing things. Or do we? I've been thinking about creating a Firefox plugin for Wikipedia that will remix the page to include a live history on the page. (Click below to see the goal documentation for my Firefox plugin idea)

This is how it would work. When you go to a page on Wikipedia.com, the browser will also load up the History page for the article you are on. It would remix the page to create a 1/2 inch floating slider bar (just like Slashdot does) creating three levels of History on the page. The "Newest" would default to 7 days and be highlighted in red (or any customizable color), and the "Newer" would default to 1 month and be highlighted in yellow. That way, if you go to a page like Albert Einstein, and notice lots of red, you know something is up. Likewise, if you have been hitting up the Swine Flu page every day, you might want to set the sliders to 3 hours and 12 hours.

Here's a good example of the floating slider bar from Slashdot:

This is what I'd like to get done by version 0.5. At that point, I'd like to make sure it works for all languages and the other WikiMedia sites. I've got some other ideas as well, like adding the most recent diff to the "Watch Page" for each page you are watching.

Now, I know this will cause quite a few extra database hits, and I'd have to parse quite a bit of text. Also, I have never even looked at the code for a Firefox plugin, but I have a basic understanding of how Wikipedia and Mediawiki work. Right now, I'm working on a full design document, as well as researching existing Firefox plugins that relate to Wikipedia including the Grease Monkey plugin that seems popular with editors.

If you are interested in helping, contact me! I'm happy to have some help.